How to Get into Medical School

The wisdom of my peers is an invaluable asset in my business. I have been doing this work for 12 years–some of my colleagues have done it for 20 or more. Here, a top NYC consulting practice shares its experience and truth…it may surprise you:

“Medical and dental school are a major part of our practice. In this past cycle, we have already have five clear admits to Harvard Medical School.

• One was a neuroscience major

• One was a fashion major

• One was a biological basis of behavior major

• One was a public health major

• One was an English major

The fashion major did the best: He got full rides from Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Case; he got 25% from UChicago; he got into NYU (which is always a free ride), and Harvard. He ended up choosing NYU (barely edging out Hopkins).

Rigor is not really a thing in medical school admissions. All that time spent in honors classes could be better spent in research labs, hospitals, community service, and leadership. We had a potential client two days ago mention that taking anatomy, genetics, and physiology would be easier as a bio major. Our medical school consultant told her genetics is always a good elective for a premed, but there is no need to take anatomy or physiology. As many medical school admissions faculty have told me, "We'll teach you all the anatomy you need in medical school. Take the class if you're intellectually interested in it, but don't take it because you think it'll help you get into medical school."

Some colleges do have "premed" or "pre-dent" as a major. These majors do NOT look better on a medical school application.

In short, medical schools don't care about what you major in. They care about how you perform on the MCAT, how you perform overall as a student, how you perform on the specific group of prerequisite courses required to attend medical or dental school (such as general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biology, etc.), and they care deeply about your extracurricular activities in research labs, clinical settings, shadowing, community service and leadership, etc.”

Back to Campus

I’ve been gradually returning to campuses as schools have relaxed their visit policies. After visiting a few local colleges, I am planning a NYC trip this week. Next, I’m off to North Carolina mid-March and still deciding which driving-distance colleges to visit in April.

After two years of virtual conferences, I can’t wait to attend IECA’s National Spring Conference in Philadelphia this May! I’m looking forward to meeting admissions reps (those I know and new) when I visit Philly-area colleges and learn much from my colleagues about how to best support our students in the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025. (Yes, I’m doing all I can to get answers for you too, 2022 grads.) Then, in June, I’m back off to Denver for HECA’s Spring Conference and a whirlwind Rocky Mountain college tour of 6 colleges in two days! Five years ago, I visited several Colorado campuses. My hope is that these 2022 tours will be quite different, emphasizing systems put in place to care for our students more and amenities like climbing walls and swimming pools less.

Our 2020 high school graduates lost a spring semester, prom, graduation, and other predictable rituals of senior year. Graduates from every subsequent year have lost more face-to-face time with teachers and peers, so they will need greater academic and mental health support when they arrive on campus.

We always ask admissions reps if there are any new programs and majors (because those are exciting). Now that we are going back on tours, I will make sure to ask about student support on every college tour and infosession: it’s not enough to keep the usual student tutors and 9:00-5:00 counselors on staff. Our new college students must know they can rely on a system to address their academic and emotional needs while they achieve their goals. I’m confident that their coping skills will help them become incredibly high achievers.

The College Process is NUTS! PERMA Can Help

Why is the college process so potentially stressful?

Dr. Sonia Lupien, the director of the Center for Studies on Human Stress, coined the NUTS acronym. For anything to be truly stressful, it must contain two of the elements below.

N - novelty; something new

U - unpredictability; no way of knowing it could occur

T - threat to the ego; feeling your competence is questioned

S - sense of control; feeling you have little or no control in a situation

The college process hits all of these! Adolescents are especially vulnerable to stress in the home and in their peer group. It’s easy to see why the college process may cause insecurity and stress for both students and parents. Here’s where PERMA comes in.

PERMA is the creation of Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman, former President of the American Psychological Association and positive psychology proponent. It emphasizes five building blocks to encourage human flourishing:

Positive Emotion

Engagement

Relationships

Meaning

Accomplishment

The PERMA method can give parents a framework for reining in stress so students can focus on the positive qualities and talents they possess rather than the pressure to be admitted to certain colleges and a general fear of the process.

Here’s how I use PERMA to help my students:

We remain positive about the college process in spite of its unpredictability.

I encourage them to engage with colleges and current students to determine fit.

We form a relationship based on honesty, even when the information is hard to take.

Meaning comes from the excitement of becoming part of a new community at college.

Every step of the process is an accomplishment, from researching the unfamiliar, completing applications and essays, and even learning the importance of checking email.

When faced with a situation that’s inherently NUTS, look to PERMA. See links below:

https://heartmindonline.org/resources/nuts-understanding-stress

https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/learn-more/perma-theory-well-being-and-perma-workshops